Does your debtor have a bank or building society account?

If so, you may be able to submit a Track Form requesting this option. A Third Party Debt Order is a court order which effectively "freezes" the money held in your debtor's bank or building society account until the Court has decided whether you should be paid from this fund to settle your outstanding judgment debt.

Immediately after making the application to the Court, an Interim Order is served on the bank or building society which prevents the judgment debtor from withdrawing any funds in account until the Court has made its Final Order.

Points To Watch Out For:

This type of application is actually the least popular method of enforcement according to Judicial Statistics and the reasons for this probably revolves around the following points:

• The money held in the bank or building society account must belong solely to the judgment debtor. An application involving a joint account will not be successful.
• When the application is made, the Court serves an Interim Order on the bank or building society to freeze the account. On the day the Interim Order is served there must be money in the account. Of course the problem is how do you know if there is going to be sufficient money in the account on any particular day?

the answer is to do your homework - use:

• your background information, and/or
• your results from any Order To Obtain Information, and/or;
• he judgment creditor's own knowledge of the judgment debtor's financial position to work out on what day money is going into the account - this may be something as simple as the day an income payment comes into the judgment debtor's account but may include the proceeds from a property sale